Sunday, March 27, 2011

Harmony Acres is a growing family farm that focuses on local, high quality, produce, chicken, eggs, and natural skin care products in order to meet the demand of a growing community that is becoming more aware of the importance of knowing when and where their food is grown/raised and how their skin care products are made. Wow, that sounds important! It is very encouraging to know that we are involved in a very important mission, and good to know that we can involve our family during the process! The weather has made a turn, but it has also provided a break for us in the area of work. Crops are doing well and are on target for harvesting, soon! This week we mainly have eggs to offer, but we also have turnips, turnip greens, and plenty of green onions. Our spinach is trying to figure out what it should do thanks to the change in weather. Soon, we should have an abundance of it again. We are starting to grow our pea shoots, and sunflower shoots again, and they are looking very tasty! If you have not tried the shoots, I temptingly invite you to give them a try! They are amazing! If you have not tried farm fresh eggs, I also encourage you to try them as well (visit our blog for delicious pics.!) A few items that we are still in need of on the farm are a 4 wheeler, walk-in cooler for more storage, and maybe an intern (very low pay, but plenty of laughs) for the soap business. This week we also had a class from the community college come out for a visit, which went very well, and provided a lot of encouragement for us as we toured the farm and explained what we are doing and what our vision is here. These are exciting days as we grow!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Rain on the farm! We had a lot of rain during February, in fact so much that it just recently dried up enough to work the ground. The last week, however, has been so hot (really nice!!!) that the ground has dried up, at least on the surface, sorta like the "clay pottery in the oven" effect. So to say the least, today's shower came at the perfect time! New seeds in the ground, and a lot of mulch that needs to be weighted down so it stays in place. Our lettuce is starting to grow quite well, as well as all of the spinach and new spinach. The barred rock hens are starting to lay now also, which makes for a lot of eggs each day!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Big news for the farm; we purchased the chicken processing equipment today! This is going to be a big year for us as we take a little more strenuous work load. Thankfully, our work crew is growing by the year! "Springing" ahead at the beginning of the year always takes a few weeks for me to get used to, but it is nice having longer days with more sun! There was finally enough sun and dry days combined to plant some onions, it's great working in the dirt again, and our seeds in the field are germinating as well! Soon we will have radishes, beets a little later and plenty of spinach, broccoli and cabbage! I strongly suggest checking out Talia's this month, as they are featuring our spinach in the "Farm to Table" campaign! They have done a great job and so has our dirt! We will be making a delivery for spinach, eggs, and green onions this Tuesday from 4-5pm at Talia's in north Wilkes,(please email your order) and if any one is interested in a Boone delivery this Saturday, let us know. Eggs are on sale again for $3/dozen or 2 dozen for $5. Take advantage of them while they're available! All of our 2011 CSA memberships have been filled, however, we hope to have some surplus produce as the season progresses and we will keep you posted! You also find some weekly updates at our "Harmony Acres" business Facebook page.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

When you are stuck inside for days at a time, 2 things can happen...You either go crazy, or you really go crazy and come up with new ideas to give your husband (in our case!) All is well, just trying to keep up with the wheels that turn in my wife's head! She is a lefty, so I often revert back to that! I am blessed with the inability to ever sit idle! Anyhow, how many of you are interested in grass-fed/finished beef? And, how many of you are interested in Turkey this year? We would like to start offering beef here locally, and our land situation is just waiting for it! Last year our turkeys were amazing! This year they should be even better! On Monday we found a fairly local (Greensboro) certified organic feed supplier for our chickens! We are super excited about this! We had been using the best we could find; and all natural grain, but it was not local, or near as fresh. We picked up our first load yesterday (Wed.) and we are very pleased with the texture/smell/ingredients. The chicks are very happy as well! However, the price of "real food" is a litter higher, but the end result far out-weighs the immediate cost! With the rise of GMO grains and pesticided (is that a word?) grains, we have to be very selective of where we get our grains, and its a battle that we have tackled and finally won! The grains we are purchasing now are from a farm in Greensboro that has a certified organic dairy, one of the very few, and also one of the very few (3 total?) organic feed suppliers for chickens. Our prices for chicken will need to increase a little to help offset the more than double cost of the feed ($19/100lbs. verses $23/50lbs.). Big difference, but well worth it! This year chickens will be about .25 cents more per pound, making it $3.50/lb for a whole bird (ready to cook) and about a $1.00/lb. for cut up birds (ex. - boneless breast=$9/lb.) As far as we know, we are the only chicken providers that are using a truly organic feed, and the difference in our birds and the "organic" birds at health food stores, is that our birds get fresh grass each day as well! Things are very wet right now, but as soon as things dry up, we fully welcome you to take a tour of we are doing, and see things in operation! It's fun! Please let us know what you think about the beef, and the turkeys! Have a great rest of the week,

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Things here on the farm are coming together very nicely for the 2011 season. We have had plenty of rain, and a lot of warm sunshine! The warm days make it feel as if we have skipped spring, but tonight

(low of 31) is another reminder that we have not left winter completely yet! The two major changes that we look forward to in the spring are the cherry tree in the back to come into bloom, and for all of the daffodils to start blooming. The cherry tree is a little slow this year, but I did notice the first actual daffodil flowers today!

Glory is always very attentive to what is going around her, even if she has to stretch! She has definitely been known for her smile! Its really neat to watch others when they meet her for the first time as they stop in mid sentence to comment on her vivid smile! Names do mean something!

The girls are becoming women, and they are enjoying every bit of it! Now if I could just get them to iron my clothes!

This is our friends', the Akiki's, children with our children. It was a house full! All very close in age, how fun would that be!!! ( and we are missing the newest Akiki boy)

The inside of our new Soap Shop. Now we have more room in the house, and more room to make products! How exciting!

The soap lady in action!

See, she's doing it again...

Almost complete, but very functional. We are adding our processing area to the back side so we can wash produce, and process chickens!

Our first batch of meat chickens for 2011. There are 200 of them in the brooder, and they are very lively!

We have had an excellent response to the newspaper article that our local paper did. It is becoming very apparent that many people are aware that their normal food supply is not doing the job anymore. It's nice to be a part of the local food movement, and to be able to provide real food!